GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — It was 1:30 in the morning when candidate Donald Trump took the stage for his final campaign rally in 2016.
Rusty Richter was among the 3,000 people crammed inside DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In his 35 years as a Republican activist, he said he watched everyone from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush but that Trump commanded the room like no one he had ever seen before.
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“It was more exciting than any football game I’ve ever been to,” he said. “Truly the most memorable political experience I have ever had in my life.”
Political event, football game, or maybe a resurrection. Trailing in the polls and written off by pundits, Trump’s political run was all but dead when he appeared in Grand Rapids.
Less than 24 hours later, he was on his way to becoming president.
Trump returns to the city on Monday night for his final rally of the 2020 campaign as he tries to recreate the conditions that produced his upset win.
Not only is the small city part of a crucial battleground, but for those like Richter who saw magic four years ago, it is all part of the Trump legend.
“He did it in 2016. He’s a guy who loves to beat the odds,” said Richter, who will be at the president’s airport rally on Monday with his wife. “It’s very unconventional. Wouldn’t most candidates end in a bigger city? And that defines who Trump is.”
The 2016 event has gone down in Trump lore as one of the defining moments of a campaign that beat the odds.
The president tells the story of how Ronna McDaniel, now chairwoman of the Republican National Committee but then the head of the Michigan party, urged him to tag on one last visit to the state in an effort to bring down the Democrats’ “blue wall.”
“She said, ‘I’m telling you, sir, one more speech.’ I said I would do it one more time, but that is it,” said Trump during a September event in Michigan. “The day after I got back, I said, ‘I just got back from Michigan. It was wonderful.'”
“I got a call from Ronna McDaniel, and she said, ‘Can you do another speech?'” Trump said. “She is the one that got me here after midnight.”
In the event, he won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes. Along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, it proved key to Trump’s Electoral College victory.
This time, he may face a stiffer test. Polls published over the weekend suggest Democratic nominee Joe Biden has a considerable advantage over Trump. A poll conducted for CNN gave the Democratic challenger a 12-point lead, although a rolling average maintained by RealClearPolitics puts him a little over 5 points ahead.
The Trump campaign has poured personnel into the state. Donald Trump Jr. spoke at a gun sight company on Saturday, and Ivanka Trump is due to speak in Eaton Falls on Monday, the first time in the town’s history that it has hosted a presidential campaign, according to locals.
Trump will be joined by Vice President Mike Pence for an evening rally in Traverse City before the two come to Grand Rapids for the finale.
The city is a meeting point of the Left and the Right. Kent County, comprising Grand Rapids and its suburbs, is dotted with parks and arts centers named for the DeVos family, who have been Republican donors for years and who furnished Trump with his education secretary, Betsy DeVos.
Yet, the city’s college students and artisan coffee houses make it a blue dot in a Republican stronghold.
Conventional wisdom has it that Republican candidates must vacuum up votes here in west Michigan to compensate for Democrats in Detroit.
Trump won Kent County four years ago by 3 points. But in 2018, it went for Democrat Gretchen Whitmer for governor by 4 points. Returning to Grand Rapids both revives memories of 2016 and represents an astute tactical play, according to Michigan political analyst Bill Ballenger.
“If Trump can win it again, that’s important,” he said. “If Biden wins Kent County, it’s over. I don’t see any way Trump can win Michigan.”
